Ron Conway, founding father of enterprise capital firm SV Angel, known for early investments in Google, Airbnb and Meta, resigned from the Salesforce Foundation, a foundation The New York Times reported.. The resignation got here after Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said last week that he “fully supports” President Trump and believes National Guard troops should patrol the streets of San Francisco.
Conway has served on the board of the Salesforce Foundation for ten years, whose mission is to support education and workforce development among disadvantaged youth. According to the New York Times, this philanthropic organization donated $36 million in 2023 and ended the 12 months with assets price $400 million.
Benioff and Conway have been friends for 25 years and have shared left-wing political beliefs for much of that point. However, the Salesforce CEO’s current ideological views concern Conway.
“I am extremely saddened to say that after your recent comments and my failure to understand their impact, I barely recognize the person I have admired for so long,” Conway wrote Thursday in an email to Benioff obtained by the New York Times.
A Salesforce spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Conway had resigned. “We are deeply grateful to Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board for over a decade,” the spokesperson said.
Last week, in an interview with The New York Times, Benioff praised Elon Musk’s government’s efficiency efforts and said he couldn’t sustain with reports of immigration raids or Trump’s attacks on the press. This is despite Benioff owning the news magazine Time, which he bought in 2018.
Benioff is one of many high-profile tech leaders and investors who, while previously supporting the Democratic Party, have now expressed their support for Trump.
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The rift between Benioff and Conway emerged during the Salesforce Dreamforce conference, one of the largest events held annually in San Francisco. Neither Salesforce nor Conway immediately responded to a request for comment.